Our Family Days!: New Friends with Tennis Ventures

We just arrived home from our amazing week at the Indian Wells Tournament. I know I said this in my prior blog but what an amazing adventure and Tennis Ventures. ( http://www.tennisventures.net -Chadwick and Camilla Byrd) made it all possible. They are a great tennis touring company. It was great to meet new friends from all over. There were people from England, New York, Virginia, Idaho and California. 20 people that were part of the tour.

We had such a wonderful dinner our first evening there. Justin Gimelstob stopped by and had dinner with us. That was pretty cool, until he seemed like he was annoyed he had to be there. I am unsure how it was all worked out, but he didn't really seem like he wanted to be sitting with us. Almost like he had better things to do. It was still a very pleasant evening.

There's Mark. Playing on Mike's team. Mike liked to take over the whole court. Bob's team (which was the team I was on) kept telling Mike he was cheating.

It was definitely a great experience meeting the Bryan Brothers. They are very down to earth guys. They seemed like they were having a great time being there and they even played with us and joined the drills.

We really enjoyed their dad, Wayne Bryan. He was there teaching us some fun new drills the first hour before his sons showed up. He is extremely funny and knows how to make the day fun.

Bob and Mike signed our posters. As Bob was signing this some sweat dropped onto the poster. I was actually bummed about it, but we both made a joke about it being authentic sweat and someone may pay a lot of money for that someday. Funny! I'd rather have a clean poster, but it was still great to get their autographs!

So this was unexpected. Bob sat at our table and had lunch with us. It was great. Him and I had a conversation about Gluten free and eating because he looked over and said what is that your are eating. Just the lettuce and stuff. I told him I am a gluten free, dairy free vegetarian (Which is a step up from what I was last week with being Vegan, but my nutritionalist definitely recommends a bit of fish in my diet.) He then proceeds to tell me about his brother doing that. Sounds like his brother and I do similar things. Eat gluten free protein bar before lunch and then have a salad for lunch. Funny. Made me feel normal since everyone else on the vacation didn't seem to have any eating issues.

Look Close at the above photo! Mark warmed up Lindsey Davenport before she taught our tennis clinic today. It was awesome. We all thought that was so great!

Now look below and you will see that she asked me to stay on her side and actually feed the balls to people. They hit the ground stroke and I volleyed it back to them. I wasn't accurate like her all the time, but it was great to feel like I was a pro for a minute. Ha!

So what do you think? Does it look like we are long time friends? She happened to stop by the suite we were in that day at the tournament and I got a photo with her! I love this pictures. Just two buddies hanging out. Hee hee....

This is The Bryan Brothers coach David Macpherson. He came out and taught a clinic with Justin Gimelstob.
I wasn't too fond of Justin's personality and I was already tired out from playing 3 hours that morning with the Bryan Brothers that I headed back to our room to relax and read. Mark had a great time though. He hit balls with Justin for about a hour during a drill they were trying to teach people about poaching balls. So Mark and him would hit cross court waiting to see if people could poach the balls. Another amazing experience for Mark!

The first night at the tournament started with watching the Bryan Brothers in their band. We actually played tennis with their drummer, which is also the drummer for the Counting Crows band.

Hard to tell with his tennis close on, but that is Jim Bogios above on the drums and below playing tennis with us. I hit with him for a while on a court. It was fun. In all honesty, I didn't know who he was at first. Still Pretty cool after I found out.

We ate dinner while listening to the band, then we heading out to walk around and check out the tournament. It was a very cold and windy evening. I started seeing people with blankets and I went in search of one. That blanket was a lifesaver to not only myself, but many people in our group. They all were my best friends when the cold wind hit and tried to snuggle next to me. I did give up Mark's portion of the blanket at times to people that looked like they were shivering immensly. I knew he was a man that could take the cold. Thanks sweetie! Love you.

Our evening finished with watching some matches on Stadium 1, the show court.